Who's Hungry For Some Lab Grown Pork Liver Pâté?

A company called Lab Farm Foods has unveiled a demonstration of its lab-grown meat project with three prototypes: two chicken cell-based nuggets and one pork cell-based pâté. This sounds futuristically scrumptious.

The press release goes into further detail. One of the nuggets is made of 50% lab cultured chicken cells and 50% plant-based protein, while the other is 50% lab cultured chicken and 50% real chicken.

According to the chef, Stephanie Wright, "The hybrid nuggets made with the chicken cells were absolutely delicious! You never would have known that the nuggets were made out of 50% cultured cells." I'll be the judge of that. Someday. A fellow can dream, in this case, about test tube meat.

"We are proud of the fact that these nuggets were made from beautiful myotubes, the in vitro equivalent of muscle fibers, which we cultured using a serum-free medium in conditions mimicking natural skeletal muscle development," says Lab Farm Foods CEO Tiziano Barberi.

To be honest, the plant-based chicken nugget simulations that I've tried have been pretty good. They seem to hit the spot for me, but maybe my palate has not evolved since childhood. Perhaps all I really crave is a spongy, emulsified protein fried mass full of sodium and nondescript spices.

I'm way more curious about the pork liver pâté. Liver has such a distinct mineral flavor that it might prove to be a little more challenging to replicate in a lab. The version demonstrated was 100% cell-cultured, no blend here. I'd be down for a taste test. Would you?